Category Archives: Uncategorized

today was sad for Cub fans for two reasons

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first the Cubs announced they would be letting Kyle Schwarber join free agency.

Schwarber the loveable pudgy catcher who was moved to outfield once Willson Contreras developed into a flashy all star.

Schwarber the heart of the team that, like a cow, had several stomachs that were also hearts.

Schwarber who once hit a ball so far that it landed ontop of a scoreboard and instead of trying to take it down, the grounds crew built a little glass case around it so it could live there forever.

then the Twitter leaked the news that Len Kasper, the mild mannered announcer who often said how much he loved WGN because unlike other outlets didn’t force he and JD to wear shirts and ties.

but then the Cubs ownership created its own Cubs network… and made the boys wear ties.

so he quit and allegedly got picked up by the enemy, the White Sox.

is life terrible?

sometimes, yes. very much so.

but sometimes life is beautiful and these two men gave us so much joy

so much life

so much hope

and i am so grateful to them for that.

 

 

2020 will probably be the year i’ve blogged here the least

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let’s list the reasons this was probably the case

  • i wrote a buttload on Los Angeleno
  • pandemics aren’t fun
  • often when i work from offices i’ll blog when im bored
  • any time i had a good idea i’d either write it for work or tweet it
  • i struggled writing for Los Angeleno many nights, so for damn sure i wouldnt blog and take whatever magic was left for this old friend
  • my favorite things to blog about — sports, movies, and concerts — were practically non existant
  • i wrote politics mostly on facebook where others could easily share in the discussion
  • im not the blogger i once was

took a long walk today and saw a dead person

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as you know i like to talk to people.

mostly because i ask easy questions and people generally answer them, and as they do, they tell me things i would have never expected.

before we saw the dead person we walked past a bus driver taking a break.

i asked him, “have bus drivers here in LA been catching The Rona?”

he said, “you’re talking to one of them.”

he told us that unlike many, he didn’t lose his sense of taste or smell, but “felt like shit” for a few days. he took a test and it came back negative. then he took another test a few days later when he was super achey and he got a positive result.

he said he was sick for an entire month.

after a while he got a little better but he was rushed back to work because the benefits were running out. he explained that this was early into the plague so the union didn’t know how much time to demand that sick drivers should have off.

he said he knows of over 100 LA bus drivers that have gotten COVID.

then we walked a half block up and saw a couple of police cars and the coroner’s van. a homeless person had died. a photographer from Getty was there and a homeless worker who provides free showers was there too.

the latter tried to shake my hand as we introduced ourselves.

over 6,000 people in LA today got COVID. next week that number might jump past 8,000.

i have to stop walking around.

it’s tough because the weather is getting nicer and i sure could use the exercise but Hollywood is cray.

we’re all just walking each other home

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amber is watching a wake of someone she knew from AA meetings.

it’s on speakerphone so im hearing it too.

it’s really interesting hearing people talk about someone dead who i dont know and i dont know any of their friends.

people are singing songs, playing music, telling stories and quoting all sorts of people including the quote above by Ram Dass.

human life is so fleeting, so precious.

we touch way more people than we realize, so let’s do our best to leave pleasant memories behind in our wake.

and lets make sure to walk people home safely

and with kickass stories along the way

over 6,000

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today the LA county public health department said that they just confirmed over 6,000 new covid cases.

a few months back i was uptight because there were several days in a row with over 2,000. then i started listing them

in july i started giving bigger lists.

but now we are past 6,000?

i stay home now.

which will be hard but with my luck both donald trumps get the rona and survive, but i die.

the problem is the pretty girl.

she wants to be out every day, she wants to go on her walks.

i dont even want to look out the window now.

i want everything delivered. i want the blinds shut.

i will miss you, outside world.

but i have found my number.

i feel like ive had many educations

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i spent several years at the beginning of this century hiring people while being part of one of the few internet startups during the dot com boom that went public and stills around.

that was college of learning how to see people’s hearts, a handy superpower.

hired over 400 people there.

over the years i was lucky enough to have the chance to hire others and they were pretty much all incredible due to that early experience.

this blog plus LAist was college of learning how to blog decently.

then the LA Times was like the journalism school i always wanted. but way better.

then the Academy was like college of social media.

all of those places were days and days and years and years of on the job training and learning from the best.

and then watching the scoreboard tell you how youre doing.

tonight i watched BUtterfield 8 and sorted baseball cards.

perfect saturday in lockdown.

try not to suck

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a few times a year i speak to college journalists.

who knows why.

recently i Zoomed into a high school journalism class.

i said, look, im just a guy who lives in a van by the river, but i know this — so much of the world, so much of your competition are horrible at what they do.

they’re not into it. they only do it for the money. they dont study. they dont practice. they dont live and breathe it.

you will find yourself in jobs you dont care about. do me this favor. if you find yourself doing journalism half assedly, you either quit or write me

my email address is tony at tony pierce dot com.

and i will help you find another gig because there are so few journalism jobs out there these days that it’s so not cool for people to be taking up a slot that could be given to someone who really loves it. who reads newspapers, who reads books, who figures out how to get stories read, who figures out how to write and produce in interesting ways.

so if you are hating waking up in the morning to go to work i will help you get the job you really want.

this class sent me the best care package today. they gave me a shirt, a keychain and a postcard from their idyllic town. it made me think, wow, what did i say to them? cuz who knows when youre getting through to teens. theyre harder to read than girlfriends.

but now that i see this tshirt on theo epstein (pictured), one that i have but dont wear much because it never fit me well, i can just boil it down for them next time – try not to suck.

time goes so quickly.

i moved to california 36 years ago. it seems like yesterday. literally.

yes ive done shitloads and all of that, but i seriously remember clearly that first summer in santa monica. i was obsessed with learning everything i could about LA. everything seemed to ring a bell. every major street or town was something i had heard on TV or movies or read somewhere.

id go to a gas station and think, oh this is near UCLA, i wonder if Kareem ever pumped gas here?

little would i have guessed that one day i would launch a blog with him.

a blog that did not suck.

and the best part about that and other memories that i have about giving 100% — any time someone asks me about them, a smile comes to my face.

and a million funny stories.

do what you love and you’ll never stop smiling.

do you know i love you, i do

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over the past few days ive been the subject of the interview, which is weird for me, but ok

and when you dont really know whats coming you end up giving the weirdest examples in your answers

it’s also made me very grateful for the good life ive had

one guy was all, why arent you a millionaire by now?

and he would let up.

i was all, uh… that wasnt my goal?

one of the things i learned quickly when i moved to LA was there were some people who handled being hugely financially successful like that extremely well

but then there were the large majority that couldnt

youd go to college with their kids and even the kids would have really unhealthy relationships with money

so early on i was all

follow the love.

so ive worked at a gas station, ive sold beers at a baseball stadium, and i drove uber

of course ive had normal jobs also, but

if i was worth like a few million dollars would i really drive uber? it’s not particularly safe

as my mom would remind me nearly every night i did it.

and i did it for like five years.

also when you do the things you love you just feel better… physically.

the job i hated the most id be sick all the time, i even had to go to the doctor because it was so worrisome

and he said, you’re puking blood not because youre sick, that job just sucks.

turned out he was right.

i miss that doctor.

so yes, walking down memory lane with these people has made me grateful not just of the gigs but the people i got to work with.

most of my stories and fond memories are about what other people did or what other people taught me, usually indirectly.

i should write a book.

by the time i get to arizona

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this has been an incredible year.

tomorrow is friday the 13th. the last time we had a friday the 13th was in march.

march.

the month the plague began.

today california verified its 1 millionth covid case.

back in sweet home chicago the mayor is putting everyone in a 30 day time out.

people of the future, i dont know what to say about this.

it’s happening to us, but it’s happening in slow motion.

i know people who have gotten covid.

a former LAist editor in chief got it.

you probably know someone who got it too.

but because we dont know massive amounts of people who have died of it not enough people are panicking.

sometimes Actual Fear really helps.

last night we met a friend for dinner in Thai Town. she no longer lives in LA so you gotta say hi when you can. we ate outside in the freezing cold (50 degrees) in a parking lot, dining on some kick ass thai food under a heat lamp

and even though she had just gotten tested, it probably wasnt the smartest move. we’re educated people. we know better.

but humans are social people. and i dont know if it was the food or the company or the otherwise lack of social interaction among friends but afterwards we felt super good. buzzed almost.

and no we didnt drink a drop of booze.

good friends gabbing for 90 minutes is nice. seeing each others eyes is nice.

but so is living through the end of all of this.

my brother wants to have a socially distanced thanksgiving and i dont think thats a good idea

can you imagine if i got him sick and he never recovered?

id never recover.

so yes, people of the future, thats what life is like right now on Thursday the 12th

as we eagerly await for the grownups to return to the white house to fix this fucking shit.